Holocaust Exhibition to Open at United Nations Headquarters on 21 January

"Forbidden Art” — an exhibition on the Holocaust — will open with a formal ceremony on Wednesday, 21 January, at 6 p.m. in Gallery B of the Visitors’ Lobby.

The exhibition is part of a week-long series of Holocaust remembrance activities at the United Nations.  The International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust is 27 January and the theme of this year’s observance is “Liberty, Life and the Legacy of the Holocaust Survivors”.

“Forbidden Art” showcases works — mainly drawings, but also small sculptures and figurines carved out of wood, stone or wire — made secretly and at great peril by concentration camp prisoners to document daily life in the camps, and thus, leave a trace of what happened there, or to escape from an unbearable reality.

The exhibition is presented by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in cooperation with the Polish Mission of the Orchard Lake Schools.  It is endorsed by the Permanent Mission of Poland to the United Nations with the support of its Consulate General in New York.

Maher Nasser, United Nations Acting Head for Communications and Public Information, will welcome guests to the exhibit’s opening ceremony, which will include remarks by Bogusław Winid, Permanent Representative of Poland to the United Nations, and Piotr Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Holocaust remembrance activities at the United Nations are led by the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme of the Department of Public Information.  The programme, as established by General Assembly resolution 60/7, was developed to encourage Holocaust education and remembrance in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.

For more information, please visit www.un.org/holocaustremembrance.

The Visitors’ Lobby is open to the public Monday through Friday in January and February, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.  A Government-issued photo identification is required.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, please contact Renata Morteo at tel.:  +1 212 963 5455, or e-mail:  morteo@un.org.